This was me last night.

I'm selling a bunch of DVDs (and Blu-Rays and HD-DVDs) in sort of an online garage sale. I'd do it in meatspace, but I'm not allowed to where I live.

Before I opt for CraigsList or for "trading in" my stuff at Amazon, I thought I'd see if any Sifters wanted to pick at the bones of my DVD cabinet. Please peruse what I have available and if you're so inclined, purchase something. It will make both you and me feel good inside.

Check it out here:
http://rommelsantor.com/forsale

If you're not watching the new Fox show "New Girl" starring Zooey Deschanel, you're doing it wrong.

Go watch the pilot and set your DVR to record the series. It's a very smartly written, well executed, and sweet new comedy that had me laughing out loud from start to finish, and for me, that's saying a lot. It's not every day a TV show has me genuinely cracking up LMFAHS.

Zooey says it's the strong script that convinced her to star in the show. I'm very glad for that because she's phenomenal in the role.


The premiere did great in the ratings and even better than Glee (yay), so I'm hoping it's here to stay.

Are you already watching it? What'd you think? Were you as impressed and in love as I?

I'm watching Swingers for the first time (after many years of hearing people reference it) and just realized something: The Club seems to have become extinct or at least an endangered species. I don't think I've seen one on a steering wheel in I-don't-know-how-many years.

Do people still use those things? Why do they seem so rare nowadays? They used to be on every other car I'd walk past.

(Boy, I'm starting to sound like an old fogy.)

Great Scott, this is heavy.

It never occurred to me until a few months ago during my latest viewing of the Back to the Future (BTTF) trilogy, probably because I just never examined the logic much before, but I was a little surprised at how obviously broken the logic is in BTTF 2.

So, 2015's 80-year-old Biff (Old Biff) steals the time machine and goes back to 1955 on the night of the lightning storm. (I definitely appreciate Doc pointing out the unbelievable coincidence of Old Biff choosing that of all possible days to travel back to, but I digress.)

So Old Biff goes back to 1955 and gives 1955's Biff (Young Biff) Grey's Sports Almanac, then returns straight back to 2015 and returns the Delorean where he found it (although it would have made more sense for him to just keep it, unless maybe Old Biff thought Doc had a spare time machine he could use to catch him, but I digress).

Doc and Marty go from 2015 back to 1985 where the world is turned upside-down. Doc realizes that Old Biff borrowed the time machine and Marty suggests they just return to 2015 to stop Old Biff from taking the car. This is where the science becomes fiction (yes, it was factual until now).

Doc replies that if they returned to 2015, they'd be going forward in the skewed timeline where Biff is a billionaire and has destroyed the world, so it wouldn't work. Hmm. Once Old Biff gave Young Biff the almanac, that changed the future and the timeline that Old Biff was existing on, right? That being the case, why is it that when he returned to 2015 he landed back exactly where he left from? And for that matter, why is it that Doc and Marty left from that very same 2015, but when they landed in 1985 it was on the skewed timeline?

Anyway, there's no real point to this little diatribe. It was just on my mind and thought I'd share. I do wonder, though, if I'm the last person on earth to have realized this paradox.

Just thought I'd share... Amazon Appstore for Android just launched and it allows you to receive a different paid Android app for free every day. Today's free paid app is Angry Birds Rio, which I suppose I'll download since it's free and everyone seems to like Angry Birds, even though I've never played before.

In other Android news, the Motorola Xoom Wi-fi goes on sale this Sunday, March 27 for under $600. It will be under $599 at some resellers like Costco who will also include a rubber cover. Still, I prefer buying from Amazon because in my state I don't have to pay sales tax, so it's an almost 10% discount via there.

Also, I had half a salad and half a sandwich for lunch. With plain iced tea.

I have an HTPC (Home Theater PC) hooked up to my TV and I've always used a wireless RF keyboard that's done a decent job but often has trouble without a clear line of sight even from less than 10 feet away and the 6 AA batteries always die very quickly.

I finally opted for a new mini bluetooth keyboard, hoping that the longer range of bluetooth and the rechargeable lithium ion battery would solve my problems. As neat as the light, tiny handheld keyboard + trackpad is, it's a pain because it often loses its connection and the trackpad movements are always delayed and imprecise.

It just hit me 10 minutes ago that I have another handheld bluetooth device: my Droid phone. I did a quick search in the Android market and found a phenomenal open source app called pRemoteDroid. You just install the app on your phone, download and run the server software for your PC, then connect your phone to the desktop app via bluetooth or wifi and that's it!

Not only is it free, open source, and simple to set up, but the connection is really solid, mouse movements are precise and instantaneous as are keyboard strokes, you can capture screenshots (used as the background in the Droid app), and you can quickly, easily navigate folders and launch files via your phone.

I'm really impressed with this software and encourage anyone looking for a PC remote control solution to consider using it.

1. primary
2. secondary
3. tertiary
4. quaternary
5. quinary
6. senary
7. septenary
8. octonary
9. nonary
10. denary
11. (none)
12. duodenary
13. (none)
14. (none)
15. (none)
16. (none)
17. (none)
18. (none)
19. (none)
20. vigenary

---

There are no sequential words following: once, twice, and thrice

---

Whereas misogynist is a person who hates or dislikes females, misandrist is a person who hates or dislikes males.

---

Diurnal is the opposite of nocturnal.

---

Angry and hungry are the only two words that end with gry.

---

Sororal is the female equivalent of fraternal.

---

Nothing rhymes with orange or silver.

---

[via]

I had a thought today: Isn't it interesting that something horrible is horrific while something terrible is terrific?

Terrific just has such a happy connotation in most contexts despite the negative nature of its etymology, while its counterpart terrible retains its terror-centric inflection.

It's not a phenomenal realization, I admit, but I found myself surprised that I'd never before considered this ambiguity.

Hmm hmm him.

Like most everyone else, I can't help feeling extremely irritated on the road when the right lane merges into the flow of traffic and car after car zooms as far down the lane as possible instead of just merging. I heard about this study a while back that says those drivers improve the speed of traffic and thought I'd share the story with you in case you'd missed it.



By Tom Greenwood, DETROIT NEWS STAFF WRITER:

... more inside ...
The moral of the story is you should do as all those speed demons do and consider it a favor to everyone else on the road.

By Niall Firth at Daily Mail (Online):

Early cavemen in Europe ate human meat as part of their everyday diet, new research suggests.

A new study of fossil bones in Spain shows that cannibalism was a normal part of daily life around 800,000 years ago among Europe’s first humans.
... more inside ...

Don't miss this rather great podcast interview of Stan Lee by Chris Hardwick (aka. Nerdist).



I'm no comic book nerd by any stretch, but I was fascinated and very entertained by this interview. Stan Lee is a pretty funny and spry fellow for his age, and he provides some very interesting insight into the comic book world as far back as the 1940s.

Check it out.

Saw it last night and fucking loved every second of it. Extremely well done and far beyond my expectations. Will definitely see it again soon. Chloe Grace Moretz as Hit Girl was a scene-stealer and the star of the show, but the writing and action were phenomenal.

"With no power comes no responsibility."



Of course if you have delicate sensibilities and can't stand the thought of a cute little girl cursing and slicing up bad guys, you might find this morally reprehensible and should stick to High School Musical and Spongebob Squarepants.

Just thought I'd share this rather entertaining podcast by Chris Hardwick (aka Nerdist) with Adam Savage of Mythbusters. Chris, who you may know from Singled Out on MTV and Attack of the Show fame, is by far the funniest nerd/geek standup comedian I've ever heard.

It's a really great listen and can be downloaded at the following address. Adam even does stand up for the first time in his life - and he's funny!
http://www.nerdist.com/2010/04/nerdist-podcast-10-live-largo-w-adam-savage-nsfw/



From Nerdist:

Number 10: Live @ Largo w/ Adam Savage!

I’m very lucky in my life to have smart, exceptionally nice friends. I happily count Mythbusters‘ own Adam Savage in that group and I was thrilled that he joined us for our very first live podcast. This was recorded at Largo in Los Angeles on April 5th, 2010 in front of a kick-ass crowd of delightful humans. As these people had exchanged hard-earned dollars for seats to this show, we made it a little longer than a normal podcast by incorporating live performances and taking Q & A from them at the end.

*SPECIAL NOTE: Adam did stand-up for the FIRST TIME in his life and DESTROYED. It was truly hilarious and I hope he continues to do it!

*SPECIAL NOTE #2: We all swear a lot in this, so if you wanted to listen to this with your kids, think again unless you’re sure the Internet has already taught them way worse things than F-bombs.

Excelsior!

Just added this to the TeeVirus Workshop and thought I'd share:



Please go vote on it if you like it!

Just uploaded these couple of videos of the official kitty of lucky760, Yoshi, so I thought I'd share for all you cute/kitty lovers out there. Boring, I know, but cute nonetheless.

Added this new t-shirt design to TeeVirus the other day:



The idea hit me in an epiphany where the sun god Ra descended from the heavens and whispered sweet nothings in my ear. I imagine it'd come across as pretty... hardcore and borderline offensive to religious zealots of the Christian persuasion, but I'm pretty proud of the idea because it's slightly witty and Google tells me it's pretty unique as a slogan in general, not only as a t-shirt.

Do you think it's over the line or all in good agnostic fun? If you like it, head on over to TeeVirus and vote on it.

Also, do you think you'd be brazen enough to actually wear it? Methinks I lack the testicular fortitude.

Scientists have discovered a sea slug that has gained the ability to manufacture chlorophyll and feed via photosynthesis. Some day humans may have green skin and no longer need to eat. We'd need only lay out in the sun for nutrition. Eating would be little more than a luxury.

Anyway, here are more details from PhysOrg.com:



(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from the University of South Florida in Tampa have found a green sea slug is able to synthesize chlorophyll like a plant, which makes it the first animal known to be capable of the feat.

Researcher Sidney K. Pierce said the super green sea slug, Elysia chlorotica, which lives in waters on the east coast of the USA and Canada, is known to steal genes and photosynthesizing organelles called chloroplasts from its favorite intertidal algae species, Vaucheria litorea, but it now seems it has developed an entire chemical pathway to manufacture the green pigment "chlorophyll a" itself.

Chlorophyll is the pigment that captures energy from sunlight in photosynthesis. Pierce and his team used radioactive tracing techniques to determine the slugs were manufacturing the chlorophyll themselves and it did not originate in the algae they ate.

A number of animals (such as corals) host microbes and algae and benefit from their photosynthesis, but in most of these associations the cells remain whole. In Elysia chlorotica, in contrast, the cells are broken down and chloroplasts are extracted and held inside the slug's own cells, where they remain active for the slug's lifetime of almost a year. Researchers have shown that once a young slug has eaten a meal of Vaucheria algae it never has to eat again as long as it has access to light and supplies of chlorophyll and other chemicals used in photosynthesis.

In 2007 scientists, including Pierce and his team, found genes related to photosynthesis in the slugs, and these genes, apparently originally from the algae, were even found in unhatched slugs that had never eaten algae. In the latest research Pierce found more algal genes, and some of them were for enzymes required for the chemical process manufacturing chlorophyll.

Pierce and his team studied slugs that had not eaten anything for at least five months and had stopped eliminating waste digestive products. They contained chloroplasts taken from the algae, but Pierce said that any other part of the algae should have long ago been digested. They gave the slug an amino acid labeled with radioactive carbon and found that the radioactive carbon turned up in the chlorophyll a molecule after the slugs had been sunbathing, but not if they had been in the dark.

The findings were reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Seattle, Washington on 7 January and will be published in the journal Symbiosis.

© 2010 PhysOrg.com

In my last blog post I mentioned in passing the show Breaking Bad, but it's such an incredible show that it deserves its own blog post.

I am surprised to say I had never heard of the show anywhere before I heard the leading actor, Bryan Cranston, being interviewed by Adam Carolla. I didn't really get a feel for what the show was from the interview, but I was interested enough to give it a shot. And holy shit I'm glad I did.

Breaking Bad is a phenomenal show that is extremely dark but doubly well done. The writing is great, while the characters and performances are awe-inspiring. Bryan Cranston won the last 2 "Best Actor in a Drama Series" Emmy awards with very good reason.

If I still haven't convinced you to go watch it immediately, I'll tell you a bit about the premise, but I started watching the show without any idea of the plot and I recommend you do the same.



[PREMISE SPOILERS FOLLOW]... more inside ...